SENSORY SNACKS & EXERCISES

Taste vs. Smell

Start by rolling over the above image. The outlines of the drawing represent the sense of taste, which is made up of only 5 things: sweet, sour, bitter, salt, and umami. Taste represents structure. When you roll over the image and it blushes into full color, you experience so much more of the tomatoes: which is analogous to experiencing the Basic Taste outline plus the colorful smell that fills in that structural outline.

The estimate that 75 to 95 percent of what we taste is actually smell lines up pretty well with this illustration. The black outlines represent a very small percentage of the volume of the picture: the 5 to 25 percent of the experience of tomatoes that comes from taste. The real beauty comes from the combination of the Basic Taste outlines from your tongue and the majority of the picture, which is what the structure embraces: smell, from both your nose and mouth, the 75 to 95 percent.